1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to technology for searching for merchandise suited to customers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Searching for merchandise meeting customer wishes from a merchandise DB (database) in which merchandise information pertaining to large-volume merchandise has been stored is a general practice. In the merchandise DB, specifications on the merchandise are stored in assigned correspondences with merchandise IDs. In order to seek out from this sort of merchandise-information DB merchandise that accords with customer wishes, someone such as a salesperson must convert the customer wishes into conditions pertaining to product specifications. For example, the need, “I want a personal computer that can connect to the Internet and is capable of high-speed processing, ” has to be converted into the concrete product specifications, “1.2 GHz CPU processing speed, modem attached.” When the salesperson inputs product specifications that represent the wishes, products that meet the specifications are retrieved from the foregoing merchandise DB.
In order to search for merchandise from the merchandise DB by the method just described, salespersons must be thoroughly acquainted with a variety of product specifications. In practice, however, coming to terms with product specifications for all new products as they are successively developed is difficult. Consequently, technology for supporting salespersons that makes it possible to search easily from a large volume of merchandise for products that accord with customer wishes has been called for.
For example, technology that, by converting customer wishes into the form “Select context in which merchandise will be used,” makes it so that the wishes may be input has been presented. Utilizing this technology, merchandise having specifications that correspond to an established context may be selected mechanically from the merchandise-information DB. Nevertheless, coordination of customer wishes by correlating like contexts has not been done, and neither has prediction of potential customer wishes.
Because customers' motivation to purchase merchandise lies in the midst of the involvements between merchandise and customers' lives, leading customers to purchases merely by explaining merchandise attributes is difficult. Accordingly, it would be desirable for salespersons to be able to select and offer to customers merchandise by taking into consideration various situations relevant to merchandise and to customers' lives. However, with such complicated merchandise as represented by computers, the products, and how they are used and desired, are varied and complex, which in the merchandise-sales context demands sophisticated knowledge. Consequently, presenting—to a group of customers having a wide variety of wishes—high-quality sales service that by offering merchandise suited to customer wishes assists customer purchasing turns out to be difficult.
Moreover, in order to draw out customers' potential wishes, it would be desirable to realize: 1) coordination and correlation of piecemeal wishes obtained from customers; 2) searching for merchandise suited to those wishes; and 3) administration of message text and of informational resources, used when salespersons and sales agents have dialogues with customers, by correlating the text and resources with customer wishes.